Friday, 22 October 2010

A slightly different afterthought heel

The beneficiary of all these sock heels is Mr. Needles, of course. He is a fairly accepting sort, seldom complaining about much, so when he voices an opinion, I do try to pay attention.

Yesterday, when trying on socks, he mentioned that sometimes the rows of decreases along afterthought heels felt thick. Since I cannot change the basic construction of the sock, without completely reknitting it, I thought a bit about what I could do. I realized I can do a different sort of afterthought heel.

I picked up stitches in the usual manner. I added 3 stitches at the corners of each side as usual. I knit one round to get properly set up. And then I proceeded to knit an ordinary short row heel.

The only reason not to do this on a regular basis is that you have one heck of a long graft at the end. After all these heels and toes, I can do a plain stockinette graft without any problem. Above, you can see the heel completed, ready to graft.

You can also see that when I knit the heel, I paid attention to where I would end up. I knit the heel on the sole side, so that when it was time for the graft, the graft would go where there was less wear, near the cuff.

Half grafted. Once the graft was half done, I finished the stitches, or rather, I tightened them up to see how I was doing.

No problem. Pleased so far.

Finished! This looks like an ordinary garter stitch short row heel. You would really have to look closely and even then, I doubt most knitters would guess.

And most people, even knitters, do not look that closely at socks.

In other exciting things, I am busy putting all my stash into Ravelry. Till now I have avoided doing so. It just took too much time. With the new tools (they have been there a while, I am just getting to it though) for adding a lot of stash, it goes nice and fast.

I know most of my stash, but it would be nice to know for sure, do I have 8 balls or 10 balls. Most of the time I know, but there have been a couple incidents recently where, I have had to go digging to be sure.

It would be nice to be able to add the yarn from stash when I add the project. It would be nice to see what I have left after I knit something from some of it. It is this last that will be the real time saver. Down the road, I won't have to wonder, 'do I have enough for mittens or a hat of that nice red stuff?' I can just look in my list.

And if you have been listening to your insurance agent, special collections should have a good detailed list. What is this lovely stash of mine, but a special collection?

About Me

'Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.'
- Robertson Davies
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These are my words to live by.
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When I was a kid one of my earliest memories of grandmas house was of all the aunties getting together to make wool quilts. My Uncle took off the table top and set up the quilt frame somehow on the table legs. We kids would sit under the table and watched the needles go through, and the hands turning moving swiftly along. Seeing a quilt being made from the underside is not something you forget. Sleeping under something that you saw being made right from the carding of the wool is not something you forget either. My Auntie Lorraine who loved to embroider and crochet taught my sister and I outline stitch embroidery for tea towels, pillow cases, and dresser scarves. There were always crocheted doilies and antimacassars at her house too. I have been fascinated by needle and threads since then. I can't pick a favourite among string and needle things. I sew, do crosstitch, needlepoint, hardanger, blackwork, and embroideries of all kinds. I crochet and tat, and now I knit too. Did I leave anything out? Tell me. I'll probably need to learn that too. It's a compulsion. And now I spin. Did I mention I have a small loom? And now a much bigger loom? Like I said, this is clearly a compulsion.